


Help Him To Breathe Again

by and_awful



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: first person PoV: Morty, first person PoV: Rick, they dont kiss or anything btw, tw depression, tw suicide (attempted)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:18:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4926523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_awful/pseuds/and_awful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morty is sad and his sadness is poorly written.  Spans across a couple days.<br/>Chapter one is Rick's PoV, and chapter two is Morty's PoV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

As time has gone on Morty has become braver and braver.  He plain old doesn’t get scared anymore.  He comes along with me without hesitation and is quick to please.  He and I have been going out so often that this weekend he hasn’t even left his bedroom, and not in a horny teenage way.   I’ve worn him out.  He’s catching up on sleep, and I’m catching up on my show.

I don’t think I’ve left the couch apart from food, and sometimes when I need to piss.  By Monday morning I finish the season and go join the family at the kitchen table.  All of them have their faces glued to their phones, except for Morty, whose eyes are half shut and heavy with sleep.

“Jeez Mort,” I say as I slip into the chair next to him.  “Th—oUGUGH—ght you were gonna sleep all weekend.”

“Huh?” he asks.  He looks up at me then back down to the food he hasn’t touched.  “Yeah.”  He absently mixes the yolks of his eggs together and drops the fork down onto the porcelain plate.  “I-I-I’m going to get dressed.”

“You’re already dressed,” I say as he scoots out of his chair.

“Oh,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t stop walking off towards the staircase.

I watch him leave and I keep an ear out for his footsteps ascending.  When he reaches the carpeted hall all signs of him become muted, and the rest of the family gathers my attention.  All of a sudden their stupid shit becomes unbearable to hear.  All the typing and the videos about puppies befriending deer drills into my ears like a shrieking banshee.  I scoop up my breakfast and go into the garage.

When Morty’s at the love of his life School, I try not to do anything too exciting.  It doesn’t always work that way, but at least I try.  Today I manage to stay put on Earth all day until the front door slams shut.  Actually, I didn’t notice it was past 3 o’clock until now.

I get up from my desk and go into the house just in time to catch Morty making a beeline to his room.  He stops short when he sees me, and with a sigh continues on his route.  I pretend I wasn’t coming out for him and make my way to the kitchen, where I begin making myself a grilled cheese sandwich.  Once it starts cooking Summer sniffs it out and comes out of the living room asking me to make one for her, too.  In the end I make three.

I place Morty’s on top of mine and with little faith for his appetite walk swiftly up to his room.  I barge in without knocking and find him laying down in bed with the sheets over his head.  I wait in the doorway to see if there’s going to be any crotch-level movements but there isn’t.  He’s just laying there.

“Morty,” I say.

He throws the sheet off of himself and sits up like he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.  “I-I’ve got lots of homework, Rick,” he says after a moment of staring.  “I can’t go anywhere.”

“Does it look like I’m going anywhere, Morty?” I ask, raising the plate of sandwiches higher, since he quite clearly can’t see them at nipple height.  “I brought food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

I walk into his room and shut the door behind me despite obviously not being welcome.  I sit on the bed next to him, take the sandwich off the top, and hand him the plate.  Hesitantly he grabs it and lowers it into his lap with no intentions of eating.  With a roll of my eyes I take a bite of my own sandwich.

“Morty, what did you eat for lunch?” I ask around the bite in my mouth.

He shrugs.

“What’s—” I mimic his shrug.

He shrugs again.

“You don’t know?” I ask.

“No.”

“Y-Y-You don’t know what you had for lunch today, Morty?”

“No.”  He pushes the plate over to my lap.  “Look, can you go?  I’m not hungry.”

He doesn’t wait for me to get up before getting back under the sheets and pulling them up over his head.  I pat his shoulder before getting up and feel him writhe underneath me.  It makes a cold shiver run up my spine and involuntarily I almost throw the sandwiches across the room.

Downstairs I watch television with Summer (and eventually Jerry) until Beth comes home and yells at us all for being lazy.  We each talk over each other to justify our lazy asses but personally, being the oldest, I think I’m the only one that has a reasonable excuse.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning Morty eats almost as much as he plays with his breakfast.  He doesn’t go to change into the clothes he’s already wearing, and he just generally doesn’t seem so angsty.  Before leaving for school he even says goodbye to me, which he actually hasn’t done in a week or so now that I think about it.

Today I end up leaving Earth, but I don’t go anywhere exciting enough to bring Morty.  Jerry is running out of money, so we pawn some of his junk to some low lifes who think the items are treasures.  In the end he makes thirty American dollars, which I give to him out of my own pocket after taking the money he made in the shop.  In reality, the exchange rate should have been much more; about $200.  He believes me that it’s only 30, though, so why argue with the man?

When Morty comes home I hear Jerry brag about his adventure with me today, and I swear I’m living in a house full of needy puppies.  I fully expect Morty to bitch and complain to me that I left him out but he just hums his acknowledgement at his father’s tale and continues staring at the TV.  I plop my ass down next to him and change the channel to something I know he’ll find boring.  Much to my distress he doesn’t say a word.

“Morty,” I snap after waiting a little longer for a response.  I grab his bicep and drag him up and into the garage.  He looks up at me like a frightened deer when I finally let him go and I groan as I open a portal.  “Look,” I say.  “This is a world where each woman has six breasts, and they will have sex with anything that moves.  Cheer up.”

I shove him into the world before he can protest and the portal snaps shut.  In all my experience with unwanted emotions, orgies are a great way to forget them.  By tomorrow morning he will be just fine, although a little tired.

 

 

* * *

 

 

I wake early enough to pick up Morty before breakfast, but as soon as I step through the portal I get distracted for several hours.  Once I get a chance to remember why it is I came here in the first place, I begin asking around for the moron.  Most of the ladies don’t care for what I have to say, and I have to try my hardest not to delve into their sin, but eventually I find one that takes my hand and leads me right to Morty.

He’s laying in a large circular bed with two of the women doting on him.  One is running her hand up and down his back, and the other is playing with his fingers.  He’s asleep against the first with every item of clothing still on his body.  I sigh and walk up closer to the bed.

“Morty,” I announce.  “Morty time to go.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” the girls say in unison.  “He needs us.  You’ll treat him wrong.”

“Me treat him wrong?  Di-i-id you even have sex with him?”

The lady playing with his fingers leaps up from the bed and pins me against the wall.  “Don’t say such things,” they order in a voice much more gravely than a second ago.  “Such vile acts must never come close to our son.”

“Aw fuck,” I mumble.  “Morty!  Morty wake up I’m not killing an entity with six boobs and an extreme thirst for dick!  I just won’t do it, Morty!”

“Leave us alone!”

The two women begin hovering up into the air and the one with Morty doesn’t even have the decency to move him off of her before she gets up.   _Me_ treating him wrong my ass.  As Morty’s head hits the mattress he wakes up and frantically takes in the scene unfolding before him.

“Rick?” he asks sleepily.

Wind starts whipping around the two women and they hold their mouths open wide.  Not as wide as the women I was with, but I guess wide nonetheless.  A yellow orb starts growing in between their teeth at a rapid speed, and before I have time to get to Morty the orbs shoot out and hit me in the chest.

Morty, ~~brave~~ apathetic as ever, scrambles up onto his feet and calmly walks up to me despite the rapid fire that frankly feels like a weak slap.  As soon as he stands in front of me and starts feeling inside of my coat, the women return to the ground with their sweet angelic voices.

“Son, get away from that man.”

Morty pulls out my portal gun and forces it into my hand.  I aim it at the floor beneath us and we fall right back into the garage at home.  I help Morty up from the cement and dust off his pants when he just stands there.

“Only you could make whores maternal, Morty,” I complain.

“Why would you do that to me?”  

He shoves past me and leaves the garage.  I quickly follow him out into the living room where the TV is turned on to cartoons.  “I thought giving you an orgasm would help,” I defend.  “Don’t be such a little bitch about it—”

“You gave my son an orgasm?”  Jerry runs into the room with a glass of milk in his hand and a face of pure terror.  I groan up to the ceiling in response to such an idiotic accusation and when I look back down milk is thrown into my face.  Out of an automatic response reserved just for Jerry, I punch him in the nose.

“I didn’t have sex with your son, you idiot, he’s fourteen!”  I lift my shirt up and dry off my face on the hem.  

“Oh, so you would if he were eighteen?” Jerry challenges, clutching his nose.

I groan again and storm off into my own fucking sanctuary.

“I’m calling Beth!” he threatens.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Daughters aren’t happy to hear that you had sex with their son, whether it’s true or not.  By time dinner rolls around Morty has come clean and admits that I didn’t even try to touch him, but I’m still “ “ “ _banned_ ” ” ” from doing anything with him for a little while.  Beth and Jerry make me eat out in the garage, which isn’t too bad since I have pressing work to do anyway.

I finish the prototype late into the evening and travel to a planet inhabited with near-human lifeforms to test it out.  After a couple hours my test subject’s head swells and explodes, so I return home and try again.

By morning I have a new batch, and find a new test subject.  Five hours pass and no heads have exploded, but then two days later it becomes certifiably insane and has killed its parents.  I kill _it_ before it can do any more harm, and return home to sleep in my own bed and get a fresh start.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

It’s 1am by time I get back to Earth and as I’m padding my way through the hall I notice a sliver of light escaping out from under Morty’s door.  I knock once, in case he’s being nasty, and quickly slip into the room.  He’s just laying there staring at nothing.  His bedside table lamp is on and his eyes are open and glazed over.

“Wha-auGH-at are you doing?” I ask, creeping forward towards him.

“Laying,” he answers.

“Can I lay with you?”

He scoots back until he’s pressed against the wall.  “I don’t care,” he lies.

I turn off the lamp and climb into his single bed.   When my body presses against his he melts into my chest and lets out a shaky sigh I’m positive he’s been holding in for days.  Within minutes his frail body relaxes with sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

I sneak back into my own bedroom before anyone wakes up, and am back in the garage before anyone goes to school.  A couple hours after the kids leave, Jerry leaves for an interview, and I take advantage of an empty house by undressing and strolling around.

I make my way into the kitchen after a quick solo and find Morty, standing in the corner holding a piece of paper in one hand, and a knife in the other.  I watch him stare at the knife for a full minute, and then he starts hyperventilating and brings it up to his throat.

“Morty!” I shout.  

I rush forward and slam the hand holding the knife onto the counter again and again until he drops it.  Streams of tears flow out of his eyes and with each exhale he screams louder and louder until he’s wailing in terror.  His legs give out and he collapses on the floor in a mess of his own turmoil.

“Morty,” I say softly.  I squat down, and he tries his best to squirm away from me, but his limbs won’t carry his weight.  “Fat Christ, Morty.”

I pick him up and carry him to the garage while he sobs loudly into his hands.  I place him down onto my chair and force a syringe through his pants and into his thigh.  He doesn’t fight me as I inject him with what hopefully won’t send him into a murderous rampage.  When it’s fully injected I take it out and throw it somewhere behind us where it shatters.

“Morty,” I cry.  I grab his face and kiss his forehead.  “Help me, Jesus, oh Christ, oh please let this boy live.”  I pull him into my arms and slowly his sobbing dies down.  When they disappear completely he finds strength enough to push me away.

“Rick why are you naked?” he asks lively as he was months ago.  “Aw jeez, Rick!”  He jumps up from the seat and takes a couple steps back.  “Wh-wh-what’s going on?  What's?—”  he looks down at the piece of paper in his hand.  "The Morty coupon?!"  He waves it through the air for emphasis.  "Why am I holding the spare Morty coupon!  Were you going to get rid of me?"

"N-no.  I was gonna rub one off and use that to clean up, Morty.  I don't want that thing, Morty.  Throw it out."

He glares at me and vigorously tears it up.  "I can't believe you, Rick.  You're an asshole."

"I know.  I'm sorry.  Let's go watch a movie."

He looks me up and down and groans unsurely as he thinks it over.  “Will you buy me ice cream and put on some clothes?”

“I’ll buy you everything you want.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> morty's pov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so after i got a super beautiful message from guest Revolver i started writing morty's pov. i was planning on it to be, idk, well written??? but it became super triggering to me and i've started acting the way i did when i had super bad depression????? and i don't want that life so yeah i rushed this to get it out of my life and for rEAL
> 
> DO NOT READ IF DEPRESSED THOUGHTS TRIGGER YOU

As time has gone on, I’ve just stopped caring about the dangers Rick puts me through. I know that no matter how many times I protest, he’ll make me do whatever anyway. He’ll start complaining like a little baby pretending that I’m the only one that can help him, and so I do, just to shut him up.  
He bathes in my willingness and for almost a week straight he drags me along with him. Finally this weekend he leaves me be because he overheard someone talking about an episode of a TV show he isn’t up to or something? Whatever, all I know is that he said he needs some time this weekend so it doesn’t happen again.  
For my weekend off I planned to catch up on video games I’ve been neglecting, but when I get the opportunity to finally sleep in after what has to be months, I can’t bring myself to get up. The longer I lay the harder it is to find motivation for standing. I get up if I have to pee and I get up if I’m thirsty, but by Sunday even that gets too hard. My entire body feels like it has doubled in weight, and every second that I’m out of my bed I ache for it back.  
Bright and early Monday morning mom comes into my room and wakes me for school. I groan in response and fall asleep again when she leaves. Ten minutes later in reality but one second later in sleep-time, she throws clothes on me and claps loudly until I get out of bed.  
I sluggishly put on my clothes when she leaves to do more morning mom stuff, and I feel like my body’s added weight is going to make me fall right through to the ground floor. To avoid such a disaster from happening I get my ass in gear and finish getting ready for school. When I wash my face I feel a little better, but not enough to focus in school or anything like that. I guess that’s no different to how I normally am in school, though.  
I force myself down the stairs so I can eat for the second time this weekend. I walk past Rick in the living room shouting at the TV and enter the silent kitchen. I already have a plate of food waiting for me, and it looks like mom fried my eggs instead of scrambling them this morning. I sit down harshly and although I didn’t do it on purpose, I look up expectantly to see if anyone notices how off I am this morning. None of them do. They’re all distracted by the internet.  
“Jeez Mort,” Rick announces as he comes in to eat breakfast.  
The sound of his voice makes my insides clench painfully like I’m getting ready to vomit and throw punches all at the same time. I’m so distracted by trying to calm myself that I don’t notice Rick is still talking until I catch the very last syllable.  
“Huh?” I ask. I look up at him and by the look on his face, I can tell it was something sarcastic and unimportant. “Yeah,” I answer regardless of what it was. I look back down at my food and try to move it around until it looks appetising. It never does, and Rick’s gaze in the back of my head makes me feel more sick than I already do. I drop the fork onto my plate and create an excuse to leave.  
“I-I-I’m going to get dressed,” I say.  
“You’re already dressed.”  
I push away from the table and rush out. “Oh,” is the only thing I know to say that won’t keep the conversation going.  
I walk into the upstairs bathroom calmly in case Rick is following me. Honestly right now the world is turning fuzzy. Too many things are happening at once and I can’t keep my focus on anything but where I’m placing my foot next. I lock the bathroom door and sit on the edge of the bathtub until the bus arrives.  
At school I don’t talk to anyone, which isn’t very strange but it still makes me kind of angry. What, just because I’m being extra quiet people need to avoid me all the more? After lunch I decide to just stare out the windows and ignore them all the way they’re ignoring me. I’m actually so good at it Summer needs to grab my arm and force me off the bus because I didn’t notice we were already home.  
Like with slamming into my chair this morning at breakfast, I close the front door a little more harshly than is necessary. Summer makes a passing comment about it but I ignore her in favour for my bedroom. with each step my heart rate picks up as if I’m going to go see a forbidden lover. At the bottom of the stairs, though, Rick appears and stares at me, making my heart rate drop and my head spin.  
I hold his gaze and beg internally for him to notice my discomfort but he just stands... I sigh loudly in frustration and barge past his useless ass. What good is intelligence if it makes you socially inept? My bed is better emotional support than anyone in this house ever will be.  
I kick my shoes off in the hall and scramble into my bed to take a much needed power nap. Maybe after I wake up I’ll feel better. Maybe I’ll stop feeling so heavy and, I don’t know, smile? I mean, I smile all the time but it’s not genuine. I’ve been smiling at Rick for months when I didn’t feel it. I’m good at smiling when there’s nothing to smile about now.  
The sun shines brightly through my window and hits me right in the eye but I don’t have the strength to get up and close the blinds. I pull my sheets up over my head instead and squeeze my eyes shut to will sleep on quicker. I think I’m almost asleep, but then Rick’s close voice calls my name.  
I spring up and sit on the edge of my bed, though I’m not too sure why. There’s nothing wrong with sleeping after school. On the bus ride home I hear kids say they do it all the time. In fact most teenagers look forward to going to sleep after school.  
“I-I’ve got lots of homework, Rick,” I say without thinking. “I can’t go anywhere.”  
“Does it look like I’m going anywhere, Morty?” Rick asks. He raises a plate of sandwiches into view and pressure builds in the back of my eyes. Since when was I pathetic enough to have Rick try to take care of me?  
“I’m not hungry,” I say so he’ll leave, but he doesn’t.  
He steps out of the doorway and into my room, shutting the door behind him. With no measure of personal space he then sits next to me on the bed and gives me one of the two sandwiches he carried in with him. Its smell wafts into my nose and makes me nauseous. I lower the plate onto my lap to keep the fumes at bay.  
Rick takes a big bite out of his sandwich and spits food onto my carpet as he talks. “Morty, what did you eat for lunch?”  
I shrug. I didn’t eat.  
“What’s—” He copies my shrug and I know he’s just trying to help, but it’s frustrating.  
I shrug again.  
“You don’t know?”  
“No,” I answer curtly.  
“Y-Y-You don’t know what you had for lunch today, Morty?”  
“No.” I push the plate over to his lap. “Look, can you go? I’m not hungry.”  
I squirm around him and return to my dark abyss under the sheets before he can stop me. Much to my surprise he actually follows my orders and gets up. As a goodbye he places his hand on my shoulder and I squirm around some more to get him off of me. When I hear the door click shut I let the tears from behind my eyes flow down my face.

 

* * *

 

I sleep pretty well all night, considering, and when mom encourages me out of bed today, I decide to be normal. I eat a decent amount of my breakfast and I talk. I do everything in my power to stop the pity but then I go to school.  
The kids at school beat me down for six hours straight. They laugh and they stand around in social circles and I don’t understand why they’re allowed to be so happy when I am so lost. Why are they allowed to kiss each other and breathe when there’s a vice on my chest? Why is their voice heard when mine goes into the void?  
The kids at school beat me down until I’m bad again. Well I guess I was always bad, but I thought faking it would work. I thought I was better than this but I’m weak. I used to be able to fake it for weeks on end, but now I can’t even fake it until I’m off the school bus? I am pathetic.  
I numbly wander around for the rest of the school day, and when I get home I sit on the couch and numbly stare at the screen. Dad tries to tell me a story but I’m only half listening. Something about money? I say uh huh every now and again to show him I’m listening and then Rick shouts my name.  
I jump in my seat and am pulled back into reality. Dad has long stopped gabbing and Rick is sitting flush against me on the couch. He looks angry as he grabs my arm and drags me along with him to the garage. When he lets go of me he groans as if I’m the biggest burden in his life (which I probably am) and opens a portal.  
“Look,” he starts, “this is a world where each woman has six breasts, and they will have sex with anything that moves. Cheer up.”  
He claps his hand onto my back and pushes me through the portal. I take a couple steps forward in this new world and turn around for Rick, but the portal is shut. I don’t know why I thought he would be coming. Were we going to have sex together? Of course it is just me.  
A hand from behind runs down my face starting at my temple and ending at my chin. “Your skin is so soft,” a heavenly voice says.  
“I-I-I-I-I’m not interested,” I say. I take a step away and turn around to face the naked woman. “I-I-I-I’m sorry—”  
“What’s the matter?” she says quickly, as if it were one word. She places a hand on my cheek and runs the other through my hair.  
I shake as I look at her hand on my face, or at least the part that I can see. “N-nothing. I just—”  
“Stacey!” she shouts. She takes her hand off of my head for a moment then puts it back.  
“What do you—”  
“This boy is hurt,” the she continues. “We need to help him.”  
Out of the corner of my eye I see another nude woman walk up. She gasps when she sees my face and pulls me into her arms where my face presses against her busy chest.  
“Uhhhmm,” I mutter as I stare at the breast in front of my face.

 

* * *

 

The two women take me away to one of their ‘chambers’ and tell me to climb into the big round bed to relax. I lay in the middle of it and get comfortable, then they climb in on either side of me and kiss both my cheeks. The first woman (who is named Clara) pulls me against her chest once she herself gets comfortable and asks me to talk about what’s bothering me.  
Nothing I can pinpoint is bothering me, though, so I opt out of emotion-sharing and just lay. I lay alone in silence with them until I fall asleep, and I lay alone in silence with them when I keep waking up. By who knows how many hours later, another lady walks into our chamber.  
“There’s a man looking for the child,” she says. “He is requesting entrance.”  
“No,” Stacey says automatically.  
“That’s my grandpa,” I argue, sitting up. “I have to go home.”  
“You are home,” Clara answers, pulling me back down to her chest.  
“I need to go,” I muffle into her bosom. “I have school.”  
“You don’t need anyone else but us, son,” Stacey says. “Let the man in. Clara will paralyse the boy so he can’t tell the grandfather to take him away.”  
“Para—?”  
Clara begins running her fingertips along my spine and I fall limp against her. Stacey brings her hand up to my face and shuts my eyes before ordering: “Bring him in.”  
I hear the door shut, open, and shut again. A brief moment later I hear Rick’s exasperated sigh along with my name on his lps.  
“Morty time to go,” he says.  
“He’s not going anywhere,” the girls say in unison. “He needs us. You’ll treat him wrong.”  
“Me treat him wrong? Di-i-id you even have sex with him?”  
There’s a long pause and then the girl’s begin talking like they’re possessed. “Don’t say such things. Such vile acts must never come close to our son.”  
“Morty!” Rick shouts, clearly unaware of my current situation. “Morty wake up I’m not killing an entity with six boobs and an extreme thirst for dick! I just won’t do it, Morty!”  
“Leave us alone.”  
My head slams down onto the mattress and I bite my tongue hard. Above me Clara slowly floats up into the air and in the corner by Rick, Stacey begins doing the same.  
“Rick?” I ask, unsure what to think of him over there in the corner with Stacey and a mild death threat hanging in the air.  
Wind starts spinning around the women before I can get any more words out, and yellow orbs fly at Rick. I sigh and crawl off the large bed while the ladies are distracted with trying to murder my asshole. As soon as I get in their line of fire they calm down and stop being so damned dramatic.  
“Son, get away from that man,” they say sweetly.  
I pull the portal gun out of Rick’s pocket and put it in his hand. Like the idiot he is, he opens a portal under our feet so we fall flat on our asses on the concrete in the garage. Somehow after this knock he still has the energy to stand and pull me up, too. I breathe heavily out of my nose and stare at him as he takes a step forward and dusts off my pants like that will make anything better.  
“Only you could make whores maternal, Morty,” he complains.  
“Why would you do that to me?”  
I push past him and leave his stupid garage, but he follows me all the way out to the living room with literal shit spewing out of his mouth. “I thought giving you an orgasm would help! Don’t be such a little bitch about it—”  
“You gave my son an orgasm?” Dad runs into the room and I want to die. I collapse onto the couch and curl up into a ball to get as far away from this family as possible.  
I hear Rick groaning as if dad’s assumption was farfetched from the portion he heard. I peek up in time to see dad splash his drink in Rick’s face, and Rick’s fist come into contact with Dad’s nose.  
“I didn’t have sex with your son, you idiot!” Rick yells. “He’s fourteen!”  
Dad hunches over with his nose in his hands. Clearly he’s lost this minute battle but he still rattles on: “Oh, so you would if he were eighteen?” I groan and bury my face in my knees. “I’m calling Beth!”  
“Dad please,” I beg softly into my legs.  
He miraculously recovers from the punch and sits down next to me on the couch. “Morty,” he starts, placing a fatherly hand on my back. “Did he touch you?”  
I try to curl up tighter into myself. “I don’t want to talk about this,” I mumble. “Please, dad.”

 

* * *

 

Mom is livid when she comes home from work. She goes into the garage and there’s a lot of yelling, then she comes out and asks me what happened. I explain that Rick sent me away, and that I wasn’t home yesterday for dinner. I can’t say I’m surprised nobody noticed my absence. I wouldn’t have noticed either if I were them.  
But as it is I’m not them. I notice when someone in the family isn’t at the dinner table. I notice that tonight Rick doesn’t want to be in the same room as me and eats dinner by himself. I notice the car engine turn on when I climb up the stairs at 7 o’clock to go to bed.  
In fact I notice every second he’s gone for the entirety of the week. My chest aches and late at night when I’m alone with my thoughts I wonder if he would have kept loving me if I did have sex with those women. I wonder if it’s too late to tell him I did.  
A soft knock comes from my door and somebody soft footed walks in, but I don’t bother to see who it is.  
“Wha-auGH-at—” Rick “—are you doing?” he asks as he walks up into my peripheral vision.  
“Laying,” I answer. Thought it was pretty obvious.  
“Can I lay with you?”  
I scoot back against the wall knowing no matter what I say he’ll do whatever he wants. “I don’t care.”  
He turns off the lamp I never bothered to turn off from several hours ago and climbs into my small bed. It’s a tight fit, and when he’s fully in I’m pressed up against his chest. His heart is beating fast like mine, and although it’s probably because of drugs or alcohol or something, I pretend it’s because he’s scared too. I let out a breath of relief that I’m no longer alone.

 

* * *

 

I wake up alone in the morning and feel my bed pumping poison into my blood. For a moment I’m paralysed, but then I’m electrified with energy and run out of my room faster than I’ve moved in months. I stand in the hall unsure of myself and when I open my mouth to scream, vomit erupts out of my mouth instead.  
“Mooom!” Summer shouts when she walks out of her room to check out the ruckus (or maybe the smell). “Morty is throwing up on the carpet like a dog!”  
I shake where I stand and watch her scoot past me and my vomit fermenting in the carpet. In my head I shout for her to help me but for whatever reason, I can’t bring the words to come out of my mouth. She mumbles to herself as she walks away and in her wake I vomit some more.  
Eventually mom comes upstairs and helps me back into bed. She places the back of her hand on my forehead and despite saying I have no fever, she orders me to stay home from school and rest. While I’m laying alone in my room I hear dad outside the door complaining about how he’s now going to smell during his interview, and that if he never gets a job again it’s my fault.  
Everything is my fault. My family would be better off without me.

 

* * *

 

It takes a couple hours, but I pump myself up enough to get out of bed and go into Rick’s room to look for a gun. He has so much shit in here in so many various boxes that I’ve no idea where to begin looking. I guess logically he’d keep a gun near his bed, for easy access. I throw the things I don't need around the room because it's not like I'm going to be around long enough for him to yell at me.  
After a couple boxes I find the coupon good for one free replacement Morty. I’m not sad about it, though. This could be my note. I could leave my body where Rick will find it, and he’ll have me replaced before mom or Summer even comes home. They don’t need to know about any of this.  
I clench the coupon in my hand and hurry downstairs. In a perfect world dad wouldn’t see my body either, but he may only be gone for twenty minutes. Kitchen knives are the obvious solution here. It’ll take too long to find a gun.  
I pull the sharpest knife out of its wooden home in the kitchen and freeze. Should I have done more preparation than this? Maybe buy a tarp so I’m easier to clean up. Actually, maybe I want to make a mess. Kind of as a last fuck you to everyone. Suck my dick, bastards; clean my blood.  
Which way would create the most blood, though? Jugular I guess. Is it going to hurt? Oh my god what if I don’t die straight away and I’m just left laying on the floor bleeding out? What if it’s too slow and Rick ends up saving me and then I have to live with him knowing he knows I hate myself? What if he makes fun of me for it?  
My heart beats in my ears and I can’t get enough air into my lungs. I begin gasping for the life I’m trying to get rid of and feel my feet sink into the tiles beneath them. With a jolt of courage I bring the knife up to my throat— but then my hand flies away and slams onto the kitchen counter. It does it again and again until my grip loosens on the knife and it goes sliding away from me.  
I feel the hot tears flow down my cheeks and as if my body stops functioning in protest to it still being alive, I fall down onto the floor. Through my tears I see Rick, and I see his mouth moving but I can’t hear him overtop of myself. I try to squirm away before he can save me. He’s too quick though and he scoops me up.  
He brings me into the garage, I think, and something bites me in the leg. It injects cold venom into me and as I feel the coldness spread through my veins my consciousness slips away.

 

* * *

 

The smell of alcohol travels up my nose and the sight of old skin meets my gaze. I lick my lips as I get my bearings, and as soon as I realise I’m pressed up against Rick’s naked body I shove him off of me. He stumbles back, the entirety of him on full display.  
“Rick why are you naked?” I ask frantically. “Aw jeez, Rick!” I jump out of his desk chair and quickly enlarge the space between us. “Wh-wh-what’s going on? What’s—” I look down at the fist I’m making. Inside of it is a sheet of paper, and on that sheet of paper is a fucking coupon for a new Morty. “The Morty coupon!” I yell. I wave it in the air until it rustles and fills the entire garage. “Why am I holding the Spare Morty coupon! Were you going to get rid of me?”  
“N-no,” he defends. “I was gonna rub one off and use that to clean up, Morty. I don’t want that thing, Morty. Throw it out.”  
I lock eyes with him as I tear it up and let it fall onto the filthy floor. “I can’t believe you, Rick. You’re an asshole.”  
“I know,” he says sincerely. “I’m sorry. Let’s go watch a movie.”  
His sincerity takes me aback. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard him say sorry and actually mean it. I look him up and down to judge his body language. “Will you buy me ice cream and put on some clothes?” I bargain.  
“I’ll buy you everything you want,” he promises.


End file.
